PROVIDENCE — If Bob Driscoll’s hiring record as Providence College’s director of athletics offers any clue as to how he operates, then his next basketball coach might be a member of the Friars’ Family, or he might be short on head-coaching experience.

Driscoll has made three significant hires since he joined the PC staff in November of 2001: Susan Yow and Phil Seymore in women’s basketball, and Tim Army in men’s ice hockey. He has hired five coaches in non-revenue sports as well.

But finding Tim Welsh’s replacement will be the biggest personnel decision Driscoll will make during his tenure at PC. Men’s basketball boasts the richest tradition and generates the biggest revenues. Without a successful big-time basketball program, Providence is just another small Catholic college.

So Driscoll is under enormous pressure to get this right. That he is a one-man search committee only adds to the pressure. What will he do? When will he do it? We can learn from his previous forays on the recruiting trail.

Yow, his first major hire, was a disaster. He signed her in June of 2002, six months after he had moved into his Alumni Hall office and two months after Jim Jabir had resigned to become an assistant at Colorado. Jabir was 62-102 in six losing seasons and seemed frustrated that he could not win big in the Big East.

Driscoll’s first choice for the job had just had a baby and did not want to move. On the surface, Yow seemed like a good second choice. As a player, she was an All-America at Elon and at North Carolina State. Her sister Kay is the distinguished coach at North Carolina State, her sister Deborah the respected director of athletics at Maryland. Kay was on hand for Susan’s introductory news conference.

But there were warning signs: a career record of 222-296, a 22-86 record at UNC-Wilmington, her last collegiate coaching stop. As it turned out, they were worth heeding. Yow won nine games in 2003, four in 2004 and only one in 2005. Her ’05 team lost to Connecticut, 71-24, and finished as the worst team in Division I. She resigned immediately after the season with a year remaining on her contract.

Lesson learned: pedigree doesn’t guarantee success.

Driscoll was more careful the second time around. He had a better feel for the Big East, but he had a more difficult product to sell. Prospects weren’t exactly lusting after a program that was 14-68 the previous three years. Nevertheless, he had a logical candidate working just up the road at Bryant University. Mary Burke was one of the best players in Providence College history — she was inducted into the PC Athletic Hall of Fame this year — and was a successful veteran coach in Division II. But he never called. Instead, a month after Yow left, he plucked Phil Seymore from Welsh’s staff. Seymore had never coached women and had never been a head coach in college. In fact, his only head-coaching experience was two years of high school boys basketball.

Seymore has proved a decent pick. He revived the PC women and has posted a 33-52 record in his three seasons. His 2007 team got off to the program’s best start since 1991. His 2008 team held promise until its best player, Chelsea Marandola of Johnston, missed the season with a herniated disk, and its second-best player, Catherine Bove, missed all but the first three games with a knee injury. If his 2009 team can stay healthy, it should flirt with a .500 record.

Lesson learned: experience isn’t everything.

Driscoll was on more familiar footing when he went looking for a hockey coach after Paul Pooley resigned in June of 2005 to become associate head coach at Notre Dame. Driscoll had played the sport at Ithaca and coached it at Union.

Pooley was a .500 coach, 185-187-40 in 11 seasons. He took the Friars to a Hockey East championship and two NCAA appearances, but his last four teams lost in the first round of the Hockey East tournament.

Driscoll wanted someone to restore the buzz to PC hockey and needed only two weeks to convince Tim Army to return home to Schneider Arena. Army had grown up with PC hockey; his father Tom was captain of the 1952-53 team. Tim was a star in the early 1980s and coached with Mike McShane for six years in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He also spent nine years as an assistant in Anaheim and Washington of the NHL under Ron Wilson, perhaps the greatest hockey Friar, before logging three years as head coach of the AHL Portland Pirates.

Army was never a head coach in college before taking the PC job, but he has delivered the aggressive hockey he promised, outshooting many an opponent. Yet he has produced only one winning team in three years and his team has not advanced beyond the first round of the Hockey East tournament. His record is 41-56-11.

Lesson learned: family counts but does not guarantee victory.

Driscoll’s other hires include field hockey coach Diane Madl in 2002, his first; tennis coach Wayne Turner in 2003, women’s soccer coach Jim McGirr in 2005, softball coach Kerri Jacklets in 2006 and swimming coach John O’Neil in 2007. O’Neil had coached the PC swimmers and divers for years until leaving in 2001 for a stint at the U.S. Military Academy.

What can we conclude from these experiences? Driscoll will take his time if he must, as he did in the Yow search, but he will move decisively given the opportunity, as he did in the Army search. He will gamble and challenge convention, as he did in the Seymore search, and he will give careful consideration to someone from the Friar Family, as he did with Army.

What can we expect going forward? Driscoll will most likely take his time and talk his way through all the meetings and conventions that go along with the Final Four next weekend, learning what he can about available candidates and then moving. Call it the Susan Yow model.

If he is in a gambling mood, he will sit with someone such as Craig Robinson of Brown, short on head-coaching experience but long on potential. That’s the Phil Seymore model.

And if he wants to keep it all in the family, he will call Jim Larranaga of George Mason, a former Friar, and gauge whether he can restore the buzz to PC basketball. That’s the Tim Army model.

Regardless of his approach, Driscoll must choose wisely. He can’t afford another Susan Yow debacle. He can’t wait three or four years, as he has with Seymore, because the PC men are not in as deep a hole as the PC women were in 2005. And he can’t settle for buzz without a bigger slice of victory pie, as he is doing with Army. PC fans won’t take it.

Basketball drives the PC athletics program so failure in this search is not an option.

mszostak@projo.com